A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Monday, November 16, 2015

What about the Refugees?

Muslim refugees stuck in Hungary back in March

Who can forget the scenes just a few months ago of Muslim refugees
primarily from war torn Syria who risked life and limb crossing dangerous
waters in an attempt to escape the horrors of war and find refuge in Europe –
or even America. The by now famous image of a Hungarian border guard carrying the
lifeless body of a small child out of the water could not have been more heart wrenching.

Nor could the sense of outrage felt by many who viewed the
hard line of many European countries that refused these refugees entry. This is
how I felt viewing those images. On the other hand some countries did accept –
or promised to accept - a limited amount of refugees, including the United
States, the Medina Shel Chesed. France took in some of those refugees too. One or more of them (who came in via Greece) ended up as one of the perpetrators of last Friday’s terrorist attack
in Paris that took the lives of 129 people and injured hundreds of others.

The Syrian suicide bomber that came in with refugees

That raises a serious question. Should the United States now
allow those refugees in? Do we deny entry to all of those desperate innocent people
just because a suicide bomber might come in with them?

For me the answer is very clear. Absolutely. That may surprise some people. I
am after all a child of the Holocaust. My parents were survivors who hid out
during the war under deplorable conditions – living every day with the fear
that they may be discovered by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. If anyone should
support refuge for people whose lives are threatened by the likes of ISIS, it
should be people whose close family members had similar experiences during the
Holocaust and denied refuge in America.

Images of the St. Louis come to mind. The St. Louis was a ship that
set sail from Germany in 1939 packed with 908 German Jews seeking refuge in the
United States, Canada, and Cuba – and denied entry!? We know what happened
to them. Most of them perished in European countries that eventually did accept
them but were later overrun by the Nazis. How can I not have sympathy for people that
are seeking the same thing now? Have I not learned anything from that experience?

There
is a big difference between Jews seeking refuge then and the Syrian Muslims
seeking it now. Not a single subset of the Jewish people threatened the world with
take-over under a caliphate. They were not threatening to destroy democracies
like Israel or rattling their sabers shouting, ‘Death to America’. Or burning American flags.No segment of Jewry was beheading infidels. No Jew ever blew
himself up in a suicide attack.

There was not a single Jew that wanted anything
more than refuge in a safe country. Staying in Europe under a genocidal Nazi regime was a sure death sentence. Every single Jew was to be murdered under
them. There were no choices given to them to convert to Nazism or
die as there is to Syrian Muslims to convert to the ISIS version of Islam
or die.

Now it’s true that the vast
majority of Muslims are not terrorists. And that almost all of those seeking
refuge today – do so legitimately with no ulterior motive. But the key word
there is ‘almost’. There are enough ISIS type Muslims that will infiltrate the
refugees and cross the border with them – only to come back and blow themselves
up in front of a soccer stadium.

No country should be asked to accept
that risk. Difficult as it is for me to say that refuge to so many innocent people
in such desperate straits should be denied - if I were in charge, I would have no choice but to
protect the American people from that kind of threat. France has learned that
the hard way and has closed its borders. I don’t think we should wait until it
happens to us before we do that. At least as far as Syrian or Iraqi refugees
are concerned.

There are those who might say that
there is a way to allow the refugees into our country by vetting them. Homeland
Security will do their due diligence to distinguish between those sincere in
seeking only refuge, and ISIS terrorists that come in camouflaged as refugees.
That would be wonderful solution if it were possible. But as Senator Marco
Rubio said when asked that question yesterday, ’Who are you going to call in
Syria to find out if a given refugee is who he says he is’?

So accepting refugees wholesale is
just too dangerous at this point in time. I do not want to live in a
neighborhood where Syrian refugees will have settled. Which in Chicago would very likely
be in the Rogers Park area where I live. And where 2 of my daughters and their
families live. There is a very large
population of Muslims living in that area right now and a natural destination for them..

That said, I would allow for
exceptions where a refugee could be truly vetted. But since the likelihood of
vetting 65,000 refugees (the number we have agreed to take in, if I understand correctly)
is virtually impossible, I would prevent
that from happening.

What about the pain and suffering
that will result from all those people being denied refuge? I have no answer. As
a child of the Holocaust, my heart goes out to them. I fully understand their
predicament. It is just as gut wrenching to me now as it was before. But we
cannot afford to take the chance of letting an ISIS Jihadist slip through with
them. ISIS has promised to do us what they did to France. It is only a matter
of time. The least we can do is not help them.

The ultimate solution for those
refugees is to get them their country back. Along with the rest of the
civilized world - we can do that. We just need the will.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.